The Other Us

by Fiona Harper

  I haven’t had a chance to talk to him about it yet, to fill in the gaps in my knowledge, but I suspect Jude agreed to this trip not just because it’s the sort of thing he’s always dreamed of doing but because there’s an angle somewhere. A business angle.

  I stop walking and stare out across the sea. A couple of dolphins are playing in the bay. I catch them doing a handful of leaps and twists before they submerge and swim off somewhere else, and then it’s completely silent, just the rasp of the waves on the shore and the whisper of the wind in the palm fronds to keep me company. I let out a long breath.

  I’ve learned something about doing things I don’t think I want to do because of love recently, and often I find it’s just a tweak, an attitude adjustment, and then suddenly I’m not just doing it out of sacrifice, but because I want to. Maybe that’s what I need to do here? I reckon Jude must need me to be bright and sparkling and charming, his fellow ambassador for whatever scheme he’s cooking up, so I resolve to try harder at dinner.

  So that’s what I do when we gather on the terrace, now surrounded by lit torches, later that night. I smile. I engage. I listen and try to join in their conversations as best I can. The women were a little guarded with me at lunch, still figuring me out, but I see my efforts rewarded this evening and they start to soften.

  Inevitably, the conversation turns to the subject of children.

  ‘Do you have kids?’ Karin asks me. She’s the nearest in age to me of the other three women and she’s just been telling us all about the antics of her five-year-old, who will be here with the nanny the day after tomorrow.

  I want so badly to nod, to tell them all about Sophie or about Billy. He’ll have started school by now, I realise …

  ‘Meg?’ Karin prompts and I realise I’ve drifted off.

  ‘No,’ I say, shaking my head. ‘I don’t have children. Not yet, anyway.’ It kills me to say this. Not just because I want to join in – I want to tell cute stories and feel my heart swell too – but because in some way I feel as if I’m disowning my children, that by my words I’m making it as if they’ve never existed.

  ‘Don’t wait too long!’ Stella says in her Thames-estuary accent, then laughs. ‘You don’t want them eggs going bad on you! And it’s not like you should have any trouble keeping your hands off a man like that,’ she adds, a knowing look in her eye. ‘I’d have had a string of little ’uns by now if I were you!’ And she nudges Amanda and they both fall about laughing, not before they’ve leaned back to catch a glimpse of Jude and given him a long, hard up-and-down look while he drinks whisky and talks seriously with the other men.

  ‘Don’t mind Mum,’ Karin says, leaning in and speaking under her voice. ‘She always gets this way when she’s had a few. I blame it on the HRT.’

  Up until this point, I think I’d found Karin a bit intimidating, but as she rolls her eyes at her mother and mimes knocking back martinis, I chuckle and realise I’ve found the ally I was looking for.

  However, as nice as this is, to feel I have someone to glance across the group and share a silent joke with, the rest of the evening goes steadily downhill for me. Now I’ve started thinking about my children I can’t stop and each mental image I pull from my memory banks just makes the ache in my chest throb harder.

  I miss them so much.

  So much I just want to bury my face in my hands and sob. But I can’t. Because tonight I need to be bright and fun. Jude needs me to be the wife …

  No. Not wife.

  I’ve spent so much time with Dan recently, used that vocabulary to describe the connection between me and the man in my life, that I keep getting the words wrong. I try again.

  Jude needs me to be the woman he’s chosen to spend his life with. That’s right. That’s the one. He needs me to be bright and fun, articulate and intelligent.

  I close my eyes for a moment and concentrate, doing my best to conjure that creature up. It used to be so easy to slip into that mode with him – when he went, so did I – but now it takes more and more effort. I manage it, though. For Jude. Because I love him. Because I have the feeling that it’s important not to be seen as a party pooper by this group. As a result, by the time we trudge back down the hill to our isolated little bungalow, it’s not Jude who passes out with tiredness, too exhausted to take advantage of the romantic atmosphere once again, it’s me.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  Over the next few days, instead of lessening, the ‘jump lag’ seems to be getting worse. It feels like I’m wearing someone else’s shoes, even though I know they’re mine, and the more I walk in them, the more they rub. When Jude and I are alone, it’s as good as it’s ever been, but when we get together with our hosts and their other guests, that’s when I feel the blisters.

  And it’s not as if I’m not trying. I’ve got quite pally with Karin, and Stella seems to have decided I need a bit of motherly advice and keeps giving it to me, whether I want it or not, and while that helps, in the general scheme of things it doesn’t make a huge difference. After a while I start wondering whether, instead of jumping back into the life I left with Jude, I’ve landed in one that’s almost identical but not quite, because this might explain this weird disconnected feeling.

  I do my best, though. I laugh. I talk. I drink cocktails. I cover it well. Jude certainly doesn’t seem to notice there’s anything amiss, or at least I thought he didn’t, but one evening, about a week into our ten-day stay, he suggests a walk along the beach just after sunset, when the air is a little cooler. The sky is pink and peach and full of massive lavender clouds as we walk hand in hand to the end of the wooden jetty where the boats come in and out and stare out back to where our real lives await us.

  ‘Are you OK?’ he asks me, turning his head to watch me as I answer.

  I nod. ‘What makes you ask?’

  ‘I wondered if you were sad?’

  I watch a seabird dive for a fish. ‘What about?’

  ‘About not having a baby.’

  I turn to look at him, study his face in return. This is odd, I think. We’ve had a few strained conversations about kids over the years, but it’s always me who brings it up, never Jude. I don’t really understand why he’s suddenly decided to mention it now, but he’s hit the nail on the head. Partly, at least. ‘I think that has a little to do with it.’

  He nods, absorbing this, and then he pulls me into his arms and hugs me softly. ‘Don’t be sad, my Meg,’ he whispers into my hair. ‘The doctor said it might take up to a year, even if everything is normal, and we’ve only been trying a few months.’

  I pull back, almost violently, and stare at him. Did he just say what I thought he said? Does that really mean what I think it means? That we’re actually trying? Or I am just hearing it the way I want to hear it?

  He reaches up and strokes my hair away from my face, even though it hadn’t been blown out of place by the breeze. ‘It’ll be OK,’ he says.

  Somehow, that’s enough for now. That’s all I need to hear.

  *

  The next day we take Jason’s catamaran and sail to an uninhabited island nearby. It’s no more than a smudge of white sand, that stretches maybe a couple of hundred metres with a few bushes and a lone palm tree at its widest end.

  It’s peaceful, sitting on deck, sipping gin and tonic, dipping down into the sea when it gets too hot, then shell searching on the sand. It gives me time to think.

  Jude’s news about the fact we’re trying for a baby has rattled free whatever it was that was bothering me, but as overjoyed as I am that it might be my reality soon, I realise that I can’t hang everything on this child, all my hopes and dreams and happiness. I need to have other things that fire my passion too.

  I swim back to the boat and slip a hat and a kaftan on to stop me burning, and end up sitting at the front, leaning on the wires that run between the stanchions, legs swinging over the edge, watching the waves lap against the hull. There is a tantalising glimpse of silver beneath the waves every now and then as shoal
s of fish swim by.

  Stella and Amanda are plastered against the deck, topping up their tans, and Karin is snorkelling. Jude finally leaves Enrique, Jason and Jos in the cockpit to their conversation about golf – a sport he sees as a necessary evil – and comes to join me. ‘Hey,’ he says.

  ‘Hey,’ I say back.

  ‘You’ve got that look again,’ he tells me. ‘One of the reasons we took this trip was because the doctor said it would help if we relaxed about it all. It won’t work if you keep brooding over it.’

  ‘I know,’ I say. ‘I’m not.’

  Jude gives me sceptical look.

  ‘But I am thinking about other things,’ I tell him. ‘I think I need to make some changes to my life.’

  For the first time in a very long time, I see panic flit across Jude’s lazily confident features. I see him swallow. ‘What does that mean?’

  I sigh and shrug my shoulders. ‘I’m not exactly sure yet. It’s just I really miss being creative …’

  He gives me a confused smile. ‘But you are creative. All the time! Look at the wonderful homes you create for people.’

  I shake my head. That’s not it. I’m not sure what it is – I can’t quite put my finger on it at the moment. I think doing those sketches for Dan the night before I jumped back here as awakened something in me, something I need to tap into.

  ‘It’s not the same. I have this feeling – don’t laugh when I say this – that I need to create something lasting. I need to stamp my creative mark on the world somehow, in a way other people can see, no matter how small.’

  ‘But that’s what you already do, Meg. Can’t you see that? You turn people’s houses into homes, homes they’ll go on to make a thousand happy memories in. If that’s not leaving a legacy, I don’t know what is.’

  He’s right. I know he’s right. I’m not explaining very well. It’s just that I’ve been flipping between these lives for over a decade and now that I’ve finally landed in one to stay, I want to anchor myself to it with something a little more permanent than wallpaper and throw cushions.

  I shrug again. ‘That’s all true,’ I say, ‘but I want to get more hands-on, actually make stuff that comes out of me. There’s something inside me that can’t leave that idea alone …’ I trail off, realising that, in some way I can’t quite fathom, maybe this has got something to do with having babies too, creating in a very different arena. ‘And as much as people gush about my designing, it won’t last. In five years’ time – maybe less, if they’re very rich or get bored easily – they’ll get fed up with it, rip it all out and have it redone.’

  I stop talking, knowing I haven’t finished, but not really knowing what else to say. When I turn to look at Jude he looks worried. A tiny muscle in his temple is clenching and unclenching repeatedly.

  ‘You’re one of the most sought-after interior designers in London at the moment, and you want to walk away from that? Just when we’ve finally got where we’ve always wanted to be? I don’t get it.’

  I shake my head. ‘I don’t want to walk away,’ I say and reach for his hand, hoping I can magically transmit what is in my heart to his. He’s just looking at the surface, the hard facts and details, and it goes deeper than that. ‘I’m just ready to embrace something new.’

  Jude keeps looking at me, his eyes moving from one feature of my face to another, as if it will help him process what I’m saying. I realise he’s failed when he sighs and looks down. ‘Without me? You want to leave Hansen and Greene?’

  This is when I realise why he’s behaving so strangely, why he’s digging his heels in instead of working out how he can help me fly. I always knew Jude’s identity was tied up with his ambitions, his work, but I hadn’t realised how much. He’s taking my perceived rejection of everything we’ve built together personally.

  ‘No,’ I say and kiss him softly. ‘That’s not what I meant. I want to stay with you, you know that, in every way that counts. I just need to do something for me too. You do understand that, don’t you?’

  He nods, but I’m not sure he does. He wants to, though, and I have to hope that in time, I’ll be able give him the reassurance he needs. He looks over to where Karin’s flippers and snorkel are visible above the waves, her distorted body moving in and out of shape. ‘Want to do that too?’

  ‘Yes, please,’ I say and smile at him.

  When we’re beneath the waves, watching fish of all colours and sizes scoot by us through the rocks, the shoals of iridescent squid that dart this way then that, I realise how quiet it is. In the silence I begin to gather my thoughts from the dusty corners of my brain. I brush them off and begin to put them in order, and while I’m sorting and cataloguing memories one thing Jude said last night floats up and glints on the surface, just like the sunlight on the underside of the waves.

  When we’ve finally got what we’ve always wanted …

  The problem is, even though this life is what I dreamed of, I don’t know if I want it with the same heat any more. I want Jude. I want the love and the passion and, yes, part of me wants the success, but there’s a part of me also that could ditch a lot of what has become our daily existence – the men like Jason, the demanding clients, the endless swatches and identikit cocktail parties.

  At first I think this is very unfair of me, that I’m moving the goalposts on Jude, but then I realise that’s not it at all.

  A lot of this was never my dream in the first place. It was his. And I went along with it because I thought it was what I wanted too: becoming the kind of woman I knew he could admire, even doing the career he picked out for me. A career I’m good at, yes, but not one that fills my soul.

  And, finally, I understand what I’ve been grasping for inside my head for the last few days. It all becomes clear. I thought I’d taken charge, but actually I’ve been guilty of using Jude’s momentum to propel me though life because I had none of my own. I’ve been riding his coat-tails for too long, but now I’m ready to step off and fly solo. If that’s not being his equal, I don’t know what is.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  It’s our last night on Flamingo Island. Jason has arranged a big party before we all board the seaplane that will take us to the international airport on Martinique. I step down onto the largest beach of the island, the one that sits in a small bay directly below the main house.

  A huge area has been decorated as if it’s a Moroccan oasis. There are covered couches festooned with fairy lights and coloured cushions. Blankets and carpets piled with plump pillows in jewel-coloured satin and velvet have been laid down around a small bonfire. A table is set on the edge of the clearing, lanterns and candles illuminating the centre. The cutlery is silver, the wine glasses crystal.

  We lounge around on the couches sipping cocktails. I feel decidedly decadent, but I don’t seem to mind it as much. Maybe it’s because I know I’m going home with Jude tomorrow, that I’ll have him to myself again and I can properly start my new life.

  We tuck into a Mediterranean banquet – stuffed vine leaves, lamb with figs, couscous so brightly adorned with vegetables and pomegranate seeds they rival the cushions we’ve left lying on the beach. When we’ve eaten and the plates have been cleared away, the waiters come round with champagne. Once everyone is in possession of a slender flute of golden bubbles, Jude stands up next to me, raising his glass. ‘I’d like to make a toast …’

  I smile to myself. I should have known this had something to do with him. He always did know how to butter people up, and he’s obviously not missing the opportunity to stroke Jason’s ego one last time before we leave.

  I only half listen as Jude spouts on about our hosts generosity but I sip from my glass at the appropriate moment and smile at him. Jude is speaking the truth, after all. Even if I can’t quite seem to ‘click’ with Jason, he’s given us a once-in-a-lifetime experience. But Jude doesn’t sit down after everyone has drunk to Jason, instead he turns to face me, keeping his glass aloft.

  ‘I have one more toast to give,
’ Jude says, smiling down at me. The other guests exchange quizzical glances. I see Jason smiling magnanimously. The rest of us might not know what’s going on, but he does. I look up at Jude.

  ‘Meg,’ he begins, ‘you’ve been my loyal sidekick for all these years, always supporting, always loving me, whether I made good decisions or bad. I want you to know that I wouldn’t be the man I am today, or be where I am today, without you.’

  There’s a little sigh from the women around the table, and Jude continues.

  ‘So I wanted to let you know that when we get back home, I’d like to change the company name to Hansen & Hansen …’

  He smiles at me, waiting for me to respond, but I don’t know how to. What does that mean? Is he going back into business with his dad? And if he is, what was all that talk about me not leaving the other day?

  And then it strikes me this might be his way of supporting me and I try to tell him he’s got it wrong, I don’t want to leave the business, but he stops me in my tracks with a smile.

  Everyone else is smiling too. I feel as if they’re all in on some wonderful joke I’m just not getting. I look round the table, confused.

  ‘Meg?’

  Jude’s voice pulls my gaze back to him. When he’s got my full attention, he pauses for a moment, and then he begins to talk again. ‘What I’m trying to say is that I want the company to change its name because I want you to change your name. I’m asking you to marry me.’

  Everything stops then. The flickering on the bonfire ceases, the sound of the squeaking frogs in the trees. It’s as if all my nerve endings have ceased transmitting and I have no sensation at all. Just for a heartbeat. And then it all starts up again, louder, brighter, more colourful.

  ‘What?’ I whisper back at him. I’m still holding my glass of champagne but my hand is shaking and tiny droplets are landing on my legs.

  Jude carefully takes the glass from my hand and sets it on the table, then he pushes back his chair, gets down on one knee and takes my hand. ‘I said, “Will you marry me?”’